1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to semiconductor computer chips, and more particularly to a system for connecting modules in an on-chip data transfer network utilizing a mesh of rings topology.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer systems have traditionally comprised a system unit or housing which comprises a plurality of electrical components comprising the computer system. A computer system typically includes a motherboard which is configured to hold the microprocessor and memory and the one or more busses used in the computer system. The motherboard typically comprises a plurality of computer chips or electrical components including intelligent peripheral devices, bus controllers, processors, bus bridges, etc.
More recently, computer systems are evolving toward an integration of functions into a handfuil of computer chips. This coincides with the ability of chip makers to place an increasingly large number of transistors on a single chip. For example, currently chip manufacturers are able to place up to ten million transistors on a single integrated circuit or monolithic substrate. It is anticipated that within several years chip makers will be able to place one billion transistors on a single chip. Thus, computer systems are evolving toward comprising a handful of computer chips, where each computer chip comprises a plurality of functions. The integration of a plurality of modules or functions on a single computer chip requires an improved data transfer chip architecture. Also, due to the shorter distances and tighter integration of components on a chip, new data transfer architectures are necessary to take advantage of this environment. Therefore, an improved system is desired for information transfer between a plurality of different functions or modules on a single computer chip.